Trump threatens to double tariffs on Mexico if the 2,000-person migrant caravan is not stopped

IN 30 SECONDS

• What has happened? donald trump has announced through Truth Social that it will “immediately” double the tariffs on Mexico if the country does not stop the migratory caravans. A group of about 2,000 migrants left Tapachula over the weekend, 1,850 kilometers from the southern US border.
• Who is behind? The White Househe Department of Homeland Security and the State Departmentwhich had already issued notices to the migrants, and the embassy of USA in El Salvador.
• What impact does it have? The Spanish subsidiaries that produce in Mexico for the American market —Gestamp, CIE Automotive, Santander, BBVA— and the review of the USMCA that the treaty sets for 2026.

donald trump has threatened this Thursday to double tariffs on Mexico if the country does not stop the caravan of some 2,000 migrants that is advancing through Mexican territory towards the southern border of the United States.

The announcement came through Truth Social, its main network, with the usual tone: «Here we go again! With the perceived defeat of the Republicans in the legislative elections – I WAS NOT ON THE BALLOT – the INVASION of our country occurs again. And the closing: «MEXICO HAS TO STOP THEM, NOW, and if it doesn’t, the tariffs on Mexico WILL BE DOUBLED IMMEDIATELY. “There will be no mercy.”

The group that lit the fuse left on the weekend of Tapachulain the state of Chiapas, about 1,850 kilometers from the US border. The caravan leading this exodus is made up mainly of migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Haiti, and Guatemala. Many of them, according to what they told local media, They hoped that the Democratic victory would soften immigration policy.

The threat, the caravan and the information that the White House has not specified

The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department They had moved before the president. His message to migrants is fundamentally identical: they will be arrested, prosecuted and expelled from the country. The embassy of USA In El Salvador he added a notice that is worth a political statement: «The immigration laws are still in force. “The results of the legislative elections do not represent changes in current immigration policies.”

What the White House has not specified is what the markets are looking at most: How much exactly would this duplication amount to and from what date would it apply?. Nor has it detailed what legal mechanism it would activate or if there would be exemptions for goods that comply with the rules of the USMCA (the trade agreement that replaced NAFTA in 2020 and unites the US, Mexico and Canada).

The tariff is, in Trump’s toolbox, the only hammer that does not need permission from anyone in Congress.

Added to this is the scenario that Trump himself has described. Democrats won the majority in both chambers of the Congress and they snatched key seats in border states like Texas. Two days later, The president opened the door to an immigration agreement with the opposition and suggested that “good” migrants, with stable manual jobs, could have a path to legal status. The same week. Both things.

From Tapachula to the border: the Spanish business that depends on the Mexican route

Mexico is Spain’s first trading partner in Latin America and, above all, the platform from which a good part of the European industry enters the US market. Around 80% of Mexican exports are destined for the United States. A tariff that increases on that route hits the plant that produces there, not only the Mexican exporter. Gestamp and CIE Automotive They manufacture automotive components in Mexican territory for American customers.

They are not the only ones. Santander and BBVA They have one of their most profitable international markets in Mexico. For all of them, the immediate risk is not so much the tariff rate as the volatility of the framework in which they plan: a tariff that is doubled by decree makes currency hedging more expensive and forces transfer pricing models to be remade.

The reading of Brussels is broader. Yeah Washington You can charge tariffs to your main trading partner for a message on social networks, no European exporter has firm ground under their feet. The EU is negotiating its own trade framework with the Trump Administration and has just verified that this instrument has no written ceiling.

Washington Logic

It is important to understand what problem Trump is solving before measuring the damage. The president lost the legislative elections and, with them, control of the Congress. In that scenario, The border is the only area where you can show results without asking anyone’s permission.and the tariff is the instrument that allows it. The legal basis is IEEPA (the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 rule that empowers the president to impose tariffs without legislative approval when he declares a national emergency). He Republican Party He has been accepting this shortcut for years because he gives his electorate what they ask for: an immediate gesture, without parliamentary negotiation.

And there is precedent. In May 2019, Trump threatened 5% tariffs on Mexico that would rise month by month to 25%. Mexico deployed some 15,000 National Guard troops to its southern border in ten days. The tariffs were never applied. That episode taught the White House a lesson that it repeats today: the tariff threat on migration works before it exists. In 1986, Reagan took the opposite path—he legalized three million people in exchange for sanctions on employers—and the American political system has not reconstructed that consensus for four decades.

The risk is that this time duplication is not a threat but a fact. A higher tariff on Mexico raises the price at the US border, pressures inflation that Federal Reserve still monitors and clouds the joint review of the USMCA that the treaty sets for 2026. Furthermore, it clashes with the tone that Trump himself adopted a week ago. Nobody in the White House has not yet said what the final rate will be or when it would be applied. The caravan has more than 1,800 kilometers and several weeks of march ahead of it: that is, today, the true calendar.

Case File

• The case: Trump threatens to double tariffs on Mexico if he does not stop the caravan of 2,000 migrants that left Tapachula, in the midst of the Democratic victory in the legislative elections.
• Key facts: about 2,000 people; 1,850 kilometers to the border; tariff type and date of entry into force not specified; IEEPA legal basis; precedent of May 2019, when the 5% announced was never applied.
• For Spain: Mexico is the first Spanish trading partner in Latin America and the export platform to the US; Gestamp, CIE Automotive, Santander and BBVA are exposed to a change in rules by decree.